54-40 or Fight eBook

“Changes of maps, my friend? Listen to
me. The geography of America for the next fifty
years rests under a little roof over in M Street to-night—­a
roof which Sir Richard secretly maintains. The
map of the United States, I tell you, is covered with
a down counterpane a deux, to-night. You
ask me to go on with my fight. I answer, first
I must find the woman. Now, I say, I have found
her, as you know. Also, I have told you where
I have found her. Under a counterpane! Texas,
Oregon, these United States under a counterpane!”

Doctor Ward sighed, as he shook his head. “I
don’t pretend to know now all you mean.”

Calhoun whirled on him fiercely, with a vigor which
his wasted frame did not indicate as possible.

“Listen, then, and I will tell you what John
Calhoun means—­John Calhoun, who has loved
his own state, who has hated those who hated him,
who has never prayed for those who despitefully used
him, who has fought and will fight, since all insist
on that. It is true Tyler has offered me again
to-day the portfolio of secretary of state. Shall
I take it? If I do, it means that I am employed
by this administration to secure the admission of
Texas. Can you believe me when I tell you that
my ambition is for it all—­all, every
foot of new land, west to the Pacific, that we can
get, slave or free? Can you believe John
Calhoun, pro-slavery advocate and orator all his life,
when he says that he believes he is an humble instrument
destined, with God’s aid, and through the use
of such instruments as our human society affords,
to build, not a wider slave country, but a
wider America?”

“It would be worth the fight of a few years
more, Calhoun,” gravely answered his old friend.
“I admit I had not dreamed this of you.”

“History will not write it of me, perhaps,”
went on my chief. “But you tell me to fight,
and now I shall fight, and in my own way. I tell
you, that answer shall go to Pakenham. And I
tell you, Pakenham shall not dare take offense
at me. War with Mexico we possibly, indeed certainly,
shall have. War on the Northwest, too, we yet
may have unless—­” He paused; and
Doctor Ward prompted him some moments later, as he
still remained in thought.

“Unless what, John? What do you mean—­still
hearing the rustle of skirts?”